Elizabeth Webster and the Court of Uncommon Pleas
Page 1
Copyright © 2019 by William Lashner
Designed by Phil Buchanan
Cover art © 2019 by Karl Kwasny
Cover design by Phil Buchanan
“Sealed with a Kiss”
Music by GARY GELD
Words by PETER UDELL
Copyright © 1960 (Renewed) CHAPPELL & CO., INC.
All Rights Reserved
Used by Permission of ALFRED MUSIC
All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion, 125 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10023.
ISBN 978-1-368-04586-5
Visit www.DisneyBooks.com
For my father, the senior partner of Lashner & Lashner
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1: The Jungle
Chapter 2: A Sketchy Proposition
Chapter 3: Trip to the Moon
Chapter 4: An Annoying Thing to Learn
Chapter 5: Flowers
Chapter 6: Ghost Story
Chapter 7: Dear Old Dad
Chapter 8: A Face in the Window
Chapter 9: Waiting Room of the Damned
Chapter 10: Webster the Elder
Chapter 11: A Lesson in the Law
Chapter 12: The Complaint
Chapter 13: The Alder Stake
Chapter 14: Nuts
Chapter 15: A Name
Chapter 16: The Great Ancestor
Chapter 17: The Groundling
Chapter 18: The Lollipop Face
Chapter 19: Eggs
Chapter 20: The Doorkeeper
Chapter 21: The Court of Uncommon Pleas
Chapter 22: The Barrister
Chapter 23: The Action of Ejectment
Chapter 24: An Unwelcome Visitor
Chapter 25: The Animate
Chapter 26: Boarding School
Chapter 27: Old News
Chapter 28: The Whistle
Chapter 29: Paper Chase
Chapter 30: Nabbed
Chapter 31: The Chief
Chapter 32: The Rock Star
Chapter 33: A Simple Love Story
Chapter 34: The Demon’s Curse
Chapter 35: A Necessary Requirement
Chapter 36: The Collection
Chapter 37: Running Girl
Chapter 38: The Helicopter Pad
Chapter 39: Bad News
Chapter 40: The Hut
Chapter 41: Thunderer
Chapter 42: A Message from the Dead
Chapter 43: The Great Writ
Chapter 44: The Little Man
Chapter 45: The Big Squeeze
Chapter 46: The Verdict
Chapter 47: Back to the Jungle
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Sometimes it feels like a cold breath against the back of your neck. Sometimes it shakes you awake in the middle of the night. One day you’re all la-de-da, thinking you’ve got life figured out, and the next day you’re racing down a grassy hill in the dark, being chased by your own screams, because you know what is out there. And what is out there is terrifying and it is calling your name.
Welcome to my world.
My name is Elizabeth Webster and my story, like every mystifying and horror-filled story in the whole of human history, begins in a middle school cafeteria.
See me there gripping my tray, black hair falling over my eyes. Among the tables of gazelles and rhinos, I am the lost meerkat, trying to find a sheltered place to sit so I won’t get gored. Lunch at my school is like a program on Animal Planet: Wild Beasts of Suburban Phildelphia.
“Lizzie.”
In the middle of the jungle I spied Natalie Delgado waving me forward like a gym teacher encouraging me to run faster, jump higher.
“Lizzie, over here!”
The louder she called my name, the more kids swiveled their heads, and the more I wanted to disappear.
Natalie had been my best friend since the first day of kindergarten—we had bonded over coloring books and the taste of glue. A seat beside her was normally a safe enough spot, but Natalie was sitting with the Frayden twins, two sixth graders who were as annoying as a cloud of gnats. Charlie was short and blond with large front teeth, wearing a red plaid shirt. Doug was short and blond with large front teeth, wearing a blue plaid shirt. They looked like a pair of chipmunks dressed for a rodeo. I glanced around quickly to see if there was anywhere else—
“Come on, Lizzie. I saved a place for you.”
I took one last look for a rock or something to hide behind and eat my gruel in peace before heading over to Natalie. Just as I was slipping between two rows of tables to the open spot, I tripped over a chair leg, rattling my silverware and spilling my apple juice.
“Squeak, squeak,” someone shouted out, followed by a chorus of laughter.
Ha-ha. We were such a happy bunch of comedians at Willing Middle School West. So here’s the sad story about that. For the winter concert last year, I was given a clarinet solo that ended with an epic squeak that froze the entire orchestra in shock. In the suddenly silent auditorium, you could hear the mice chewing on our shoelaces. Such fun.
Now, with the laughter still ringing in my ears, I hurried over and dropped into the chair next to Natalie.
“Nice landing,” said one of the Fraydens in that grating Frayden voice, like a cross between an air horn and a bumblebee.
“Be quiet, Doug,” said Natalie. “Hey, Lizzie. The twins were just trying to get me to join debate club.”
I picked at the macaroni and cheese on my plate, which looked suspiciously like chunks of rubber hose in a yellow industrial sludge.
“Both you guys should join,” said Charlie.
“Pass,” said Natalie.
“But we have so much fun,” said Doug. “We laugh and laugh.”
“Have you ever noticed that when you guys laugh you sound like hyenas?” said Natalie.
“How do hyenas sound?”
“Say something amusing, Lizzie.”
“Something amusing,” I said.
The boys snorted.
“Like that,” Natalie said.
The Fraydens were smart and cheerful and beyond my comprehension. First off, they seemed to like everyone, which made no sense to me, since I pretty much knew everyone they knew and I barely liked anyone. They were also always so excited about the most boring things, such as debate club. If instead of a debate club there had been a silent club, I would have been right on it. When the mood struck I could out-silent a rock. But the thought of standing around arguing about something with other people who were arguing back, and doing it on purpose—for fun—just seemed wrong. Like if someone told me she had joined the falling-off-the-roof club. I mean, if it wasn’t for the broken arms…
“What do you debate about?” I asked.
“It doesn’t really matter,” said Charlie. “You don’t pick your topic or your side. It’s all in how you argue.”
“That sounds like dinner at my house,” said Natalie.
“What about you, Elizabeth?” said Charlie. “We could use some brains on the team.”
“Obviously,” said Natalie.
“You mean you want me to stand in front of a bunch of people I don’t know,” I said, “and argue for something I don’t care about.”
“Exactly.”
“You see this f
ork?” I said, holding up a piece of silverware spearing a drippy piece of yellow macaroni. “I’d rather stick it in my eye.”
“Better yet, stick it in Charlie’s eye,” said Natalie.
“We need that aggressiveness, Elizabeth,” said Doug. “You’re a natural.”
“I have got to find something to do after school,” said Natalie. “Even debate would be better than going home on the early bus. I was thinking of trying out for cheerleading in the spring. You want to do it with me, Lizzie?”
“Give me an ‘N,’” I said. “Give me an ‘O.’”
“But they give us pom-poms,” said Natalie. “Who doesn’t like—” She stopped talking and lifted her head, before saying in a soft whisper, “Yikes alive.”
And there, right there, in Natalie’s breathless little eep, was the beginning of everything.
I searched the lunchroom for some horrible creature running loose, a wild boar, maybe, with two-foot tusks. It would take something truly awful to stop Natalie in the middle of a sentence.
“Could he get any better looking?” said Natalie when she finally caught her breath.
“Who?”
“Him,” said Natalie. “Henry Harrison.”
Ah yes, now I saw. Henry Harrison was walking toward our side of the lunchroom. Hooray, hooray. Everyone knew Henry Harrison, the swimming star who went through girlfriends like Natalie went through shoes, who played bongos in the talent show, and who each morning before school was already training with the high school swim team. He was almost as big as a high school kid even at thirteen, dark skin, broad shoulders, and a sharp high fade for a haircut.
“Is he looking here?” Natalie asked. “Oh my God. He’s looking here. He’s looking right at me.”
“Doesn’t he have a girlfriend?” I said.
“Debbie Benner, a tennis player. But nothing lasts with Henry Harrison. And tell me he’s not coming right here.”
As impossible as it sounded, Natalie was right—Henry Harrison was walking toward us. And what was more, he was looking right at Natalie. And it wasn’t just Natalie who noticed. The whole lunchroom hushed as Henry Harrison slowly made his way to our table.
“What did you do?” said Charlie Frayden in a nervous voice.
“Nothing,” said Doug. “I swear.”
“Did you hear what he did to Grimes?”
“They had to spread him with butter to get him out of the trash can.”
“And Grimes is a vegan! What did you do?”
“Got to go,” said Doug before he grabbed his tray and fled the table, his brother right behind him.
I lowered my head and let my hair drop over my eyes like a shield as Henry Harrison walked the final few feet to our table, sat down across from Natalie, and stared at her for a moment.
I had seen him in the halls and on the talent show stage, but being this close to him was disconcerting. As I plowed my fork through my macaroni, I could feel the force field of his athleticism and popularity.
“Hey,” said Henry Harrison.
“Hey, yourself,” peeped Natalie as she put on her most charming smile. She was trying so hard I was embarrassed for her, but I understood. In Natalie’s world, to be swooped upon by a popular eighth-grade sports star was as delicious as a chocolate Pocky—and is anything more delicious than a chocolate Pocky?
“People have been talking about you,” said Henry.
“About me?” said Natalie. “Nothing bad, I hope.”
“Nothing bad at all.”
“Then maybe you’ve been talking to the wrong people.” She laughed nervously.
“I heard you’re some kind of math genius.”
“Hardly. Math’s like way down on my list, somewhere between square dancing and hang gliding.”
“Do you hang glide?”
She shook her head. “I don’t square-dance, either.”
“So, no math?”
“No math. Pero, soy bastante buena en español. And I play guitar, if that counts.”
“I’m a little confused,” said Henry. “Aren’t you Elizabeth Webster?”
“Oh, you are confused,” said Natalie, her smile disappearing bit by bit, like the sun slowly setting below the horizon. “You don’t want me. You want her.”
Henry Harrison turned his gaze from Natalie to me. “You’re Elizabeth?”
“Since I was born,” I said in a low, embarrassed mumble.
“What do your friends call you?”
“Elizabeth.”
“How about Beth?”
“How about not.”
“Okay. I’ll call you Webster. So you’re the genius I’ve been hearing all about. You’re studying ninth-grade Geometry with Mr. Pepperton, right?”
“You don’t have to be a genius to learn ninth-grade Geometry. I mean, Mr. Pepperton is teaching it.”
“I don’t know, I’m having a hard enough time with linear equations.”
“Stick with it,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll get them straightened out.”
This Henry Harrison laughed a little too loudly at my joke before drumming a bit on the table. “Here’s the story,” he said. “I’m having trouble with math, and my swim coach is hassling me about my grades. I was hoping you could help me with—”
Thunk!
Henry jerked back at the sound as I turned to face Natalie, who had just smacked her head on the table.
“Are you okay?” said Henry.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” said Natalie, still facedown.
“Don’t worry about Natalie,” I said, having seen this act before. “You know that thing where you fall asleep in the middle of a conversation? Narco something?”
“Narcolepsy?”
“That’s it.”
“You have narcolepsy?”
“I wish,” said Natalie.
Henry looked at me, at Natalie, back at me. “So, Webster,” he said, barreling on despite his confusion, “what do you think? Could you tutor me, just until I catch on to the basics? Please? I’ll pay you.”
Natalie’s head lifted from the table as if raised by the scent of money. “How much?” she asked. I turned and gave her a low growl.
“How about twenty bucks for the first session?”
“Twenty-five,” said Natalie.
“Done,” said Henry. “Do we have a deal, Webster?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“All right,” he said, flashing his famous smile. “Is tonight good?”
“Tonight?” I said.
“No time to waste. Eight at my house. We’re at the top of Orchard Lane. Two one three.”
“The pile of—”
“That’s the one,” he said quickly. “See you then.” And just as quickly as he had appeared he was gone, heading back across the lunchroom as if being chased by my regret.
What had just happened? One moment I was sitting peacefully, trying not to get sick at lunch, and the next moment I had been signed up to spend hours trying to explain linear equations to some jock who lived in a heap of stone high on a hill. We had all heard things about that house. And Henry Harrison seemed too anxious. The whole thing sounded way sketchy.
“I have got to get better at math,” said Natalie as she watched Henry walk away.
“Nice face-plant,” I said.
“Thanks. I’ve been working on it. You are so lucky.”
“What do you want, a commission?”
“I’m not talking about the money, silly.”
“It’s just tutoring,” I said.
“It’s never just tutoring, not with someone like Henry Harrison. He is totally hot.”
“And a zero at math.”
“Sometimes, Lizzie, you are just so dense.”
Maybe I was, because Natalie was right that this wasn’t about math. But it wasn’t about Henry Harrison and me, either. What it was about was a glimpse into another, terrifying world where my name was being tossed around like a basketball.
Shortly after my mother got remarried, she
arranged for me to have a talk with a nice psychologist. At the time I didn’t understand why I needed to talk to anyone. Do you think maybe it was because of the way I acted at the wedding?
I told my mother I didn’t want to go and see the nice lady. I buried my face in a pillow and screamed when she insisted. And then, in the doctor’s office, I sat on the couch with my arms crossed for the entire “talk.”
“I feel some anger here,” said the doctor.
You think? Like I said, she was nice, and she tried really hard, but there was all this stuff swirling in my head that made dealing with her impossible. I mean, how do you put a tornado into words?
“Tell me about yourself, Elizabeth,” said the doctor.
And right there, at her very first question, I was stumped. What could I say then? What could I say now? When I thought about myself, I only thought about who I wasn’t and what I couldn’t do. I wasn’t an actor or a singer—my grandmother once described my voice as frog-like. Yes, my grandmother! My math was okay, sure, and I liked to read manga paperbacks, stories about wide-eyed girls with supernatural powers—everyone needs heroes—but I couldn’t dance or write poetry, my clarinet was a certified instrument of torture, and I certainly wasn’t a sparkling conversationalist, as my mother pointed out to me every night at dinner.
“So how was school today, Elizabeth?” she asked after dishing out the meatloaf, potatoes, and peas.
“Fine.”
“Did anything exciting happen?”
“No.”
“Nothing.”
“It’s school.”
“You must go to the most deadly dull school in America,” said my stepfather, Stephen Scali, in his slow voice. Stephen, bald and thin, suffered from an incurable disease called boringitis. “Gosh, I remember all my adventures in junior high. I might have to call the principal and tell her that they need to liven up the place.”
“Please don’t. Tell him, Mom, please.”
“Don’t get into such a huff,” said my mother. “More mashed potatoes, Peter?”
“What’s a huff?” said my little brother, Peter.
“You know the big bad wolf?” said my mother. “Well, he huffs before he puffs.”
“He smokes?” said Peter.
“No wonder he couldn’t blow down that house,” I said.